I've been trying to figure out why the Weinstein verdict has been making me feel queasy instead of vindicated. I think it's because I keep remembering the survivors I worked with after a prosecution or campus adjudication ended. Here's what that can look like:
These systems of "accountability" are sold to survivors of sexual assault as the ultimate Closure. Justice. The Solution to the Horrible Thing that Happened. So many of them feel like they are drowning in trauma and pain, and they cling to this like a life preserver.
They sometimes throw their whole selves into a case. They spend years in some cases learning how to be the best witness they can be. To do a good job of flaying themselves open in the most painful ways, because society and the systems have told them this is the way to be whole.
Maybe they "win," and the world feels just for a moment. It's over.
And then a week or a month or a few months after trial, it hits them: it won't ever be over.
And then a week or a month or a few months after trial, it hits them: it won't ever be over.
They have the same nightmares they had before (but maybe now there are new ones about the trial.) They still can't focus in class. They are still behind on their bills. They still don't feel safe in their house. They still hurt, a lot.
They are no less harmed than they were before. The process they were sold as being the ultimate answer wasn't, and closure isn't real–– or at least, the sort of closure they wanted isn't. It is an absolutely devastating realization.
Accountability is important. And seeing an incredibly powerful figure who used his power to serially abuse women with impunity face some degree of accountability is a good thing, overall, I think.
But it's hard to stomach anything that happens through such a lacking system being "the big win" for survivors of sexual assault. Because it just doesn't feel like enough. It isn't enough.
